He’s not a madman, he’s a charming and calculated businessman. Even Ethan could see that in Damien Parker’s eyes.
“Is Raleigh okay?”
Damien nodded and smiled behind his beard. “How was your vacation, Ethan?”
Thinking back to his time on the island of the Barbados, Ethan couldn’t help but smile. According to his credit card, he’d booked the trip, even though he hadn’t known about it until the tickets had arrived two days prior to his departure. He’d also booked himself a first-class ticket, something he wouldn’t have normally done, but he’d figured it was done that way for a reason.
“I wasn’t ready to come back to this,” Ethan admitted.
He’d thought he would meet Raleigh on the island, expected they’d have a room overlooking the ocean where they could leave the balcony door open and make love to the sound of the crashing waves on the beach. Except when he’d arrived at Grantley Adams International Airport, a chauffeur had taken him, via a Mercedes-Benz, to a private, gated condominium enclave.
The same chauffeur had shown him to a main-floor condo with a garden view from the living room, and an ocean view from the two bedrooms with walk-out balconies.
When Ethan opened his mouth to speak, Damien raised a gloved hand to silence him. And then that same hand disappeared inside his winter jacket. Standing on the cold, top-level of the parking garage with no witnesses around, Ethan half-expected Damien to produce a silencer-equipped handgun. Instead, he pulled out an envelope. It was blank, just like the one UPS had delivered with the vacation tickets and itinerary in it.
But Damien didn’t extend the envelope to Ethan right away, which meant there were conditions attached to it.
“If you accept this, you can’t go home, Ethan.”
“Why not, are the FBI there?” He felt his stomach drop underneath his own jacket—the same thin-layered trench coat that he’d worn to the office for all of those years, suitable for a quick walk from where he’d park his old car to Exact Data’s front entrance, but nowhere near qualified for the -16 winter temperature. Still, Ethan could sense the heavy perspiration running down his spine and soaking through the underarms of his I Love Barbados t-shirt.
Shrugging, Damien offered a sad-looking face, his eyebrows rising underneath his bangs. “That’s not how this works, I’m afraid.” He wiggled the envelope. “You have time to decide Ethan. This flight doesn’t leave for two hours, but once you’re on that plane, you can never come back. Not like Raleigh. And never coming back is a big decision, no matter how well she claims to have prepared you.”
It felt like high-stakes espionage now, no longer the crazy ramblings of a wife whose platelet medication would sometimes push her to the edge of insanity-fueled rage. High-stakes, like when he’d heard the knock at the patio door that first night at the condo and discovered a snorkeling set, left there like a clue. It had been dark, creeping up on eleven at night, and he knew the only thing he’d see with the snorkeling set were electrified eels and glowing jellyfish, assuming they not only existed, but that they swam close to shore at night. But he’d taken the snorkeling set anyway, locked up his room, and wandered down to the gated community’s private beach.
The waves were active, their crests catching the moonlight before crashing into the sandy shore. Ethan couldn’t see anyone else on the beach—the live music at the public pool area was muffled out there, mostly drowned out by the ocean’s wild symphony.
Snapping back to reality as a blast of cold air slapped him, Ethan asked, “Will Raleigh be there?”
Damien smiled. It was enough of a response, more than what he needed.
Ethan took the envelope and reached back for the Jag’s driver’s door.
“No need to turn the engine off,” Damien said.
Unsure what the other man was talking about, Ethan noticed Damien’s outstretched hand.
“I’ll take the keys.” He gave a nod, a serious one that preceded the smile melting off of his face. “I’ll make sure you disappear. Properly, not like the half-assed job we did with Raleigh.”
Swallowing, Ethan reached underneath his jacket and grabbed the key fob for the Jag.
“And the house keys, too.”
Ethan considered the other man’s eyes; so stone cold that it made sense why Lawrence Parker hadn’t retired from ParkerPharma just yet—his most-qualified son and best successor, Damien Parker, was supposed to be MIA, covertly running the company’s most-difficult and clandestine operations.
At last, Ethan grabbed the house keys and handed them to Damien Parker, who finally blinked and glanced down at the items in his open palm. Maybe Damien was getting tired of all of the running, the top-secret meetings, the underhanded deals with areas of government that were desperate for the kind of help they just couldn’t get from their state and federal representatives. Or, maybe, Damien hated that his siblings were getting more credit than he received publically, living their lives and working their jobs at the family business, in the open, with their own wives and children, and without fear of setting off alarms each time their passports got scanned at airports and customs kiosks.
When Damien looked up, he smiled. “You’ve got a plane to catch, Ethan. Don’t want to miss it.”
“Okay. I’ll just grab my suitcase—”
Damien shook his head. “You’ll have to leave with what you’re wearing. Sorry.”
“Oh, alright.” But it wasn’t alright; skimpy trench coat or not, Ethan was sweating now, scared about leaving it all behind, about walking away from the life he’d managed to survive for all of those years without Raleigh. But he knew he was making an irrational choice in order to achieve a rational goal.
Before Ethan could step away, Damien opened his other hand. “I’ll take the snow brush, too.”
Ethan hadn’t realized he was still holding it. He chuckled as he handed the brush to Damien. “Sorry. I’m not good at this.”
Offering a firm nod, Damien said, “You don’t need to be. That’s my job.”
Stepping away from his prized Jaguar and the man who had managed to help his wife disappear seven and a half years ago in an ambulance, Ethan noticed the billboard in the distance. It advertised Florida. A stretch of Miami Beach, a pinkish-purple sky in the background occupied its full width. But the scene reminded him of the Barbados, that night when he’d wandered down to the dark ocean, the waves hitting the shore, nobody around.
“Mi todo,” Raleigh had said, sneaking up behind him and sliding her arms around his waist.
He’d spun around, stared into her eyes before kissing her with the same passion as when she’d reappeared in their home, seven months prior. With the waves crashing behind him, he managed to pull away, dizzy from that kiss, her touch, her now-blonde hair blowing in the wind and swatting across his face.
“I’ve missed you, Ethan.”
He gulped. “So, what am I doing here?”
She’d chuckled before pressing her lips to his and kissing him again.
“Do you remember our honeymoon?” she asked him.
“We didn’t have one.”
Biting her bottom lip, she tried to suppress the smile from spreading too far across her face. “I’ve waited too long for this, Ethan. Now, remind me how you’ve missed me.”
“I have,” he said, taking the lead and kissing her. I have missed you. So much.
THE END
Preview: The Last Friend
As a Kindle Scout competition winner, The Last Friend introduces readers to Special Agent Mike Klein as he investigates the serial kidnappings of several young girls, including Elizabeth Glass.
When a young woman knocks on Donovan Glass’s door, claiming to have known his daughter who was kidnapped fifteen years ago, he listens. Against the advice of his family and the authorities, Donovan listens to this young woman’s stories about how his daughter spent her final days in horrible captivity.
But is this young woman really who she claims to be? Is she motivated by something else? Do
es she want something Donovan might be unable to provide?
Who is this young woman? Who is this last friend?
Six Years Earlier
A police officer stopped in front of the leather reading chair. The man seated there hung his head, his body angled forward. All he saw was the worn carpet and the police officer’s polished black boots.
“Donovan?” The cop cleared his throat. “Mr. Glass, there’s a federal agent asking for you outside.” Glass, a slender man hanging on to his late thirties by a fingernail, was no stranger to the worst kinds of tragedies, the ones from which people didn’t normally bounce back. When he raised his attention to the officer, his red, puffy eyes looked lost.
“Who is it? Ted Marshall? Mike Klein? Jordan Hawthorne?”
The cop cleared his throat again before frowning. “Special Agent Klein, Chicago bureau. You want to talk to him?”
The words took a while to sink in. After a couple of seconds, Donovan Glass blinked his red eyes and then nodded. Did he have an option?
“Okay, but you have to meet with him outside. Can’t have the scene contaminated more than it already is.”
After a delay, Glass sighed and pushed himself out of the chair. He understood. He wasn’t a stranger to tragedy.
The Glass house was a two-story home on North Williamson Avenue, a dead-end street in Oak Park. Not a bad street, although the apartment buildings a few lots down tended to get rowdy on Friday nights and especially over the long weekends. A few weeks ago, a police SWAT team had parked at the end of the street and stormed into a home a couple of blocks east, but it hadn’t affected the North Williamson crew. In fact, the convoy of police cars and the Cook County Medical Examiner parked outside the Glass residence was the most action North Williamson Avenue had seen in a while.
When Donovan stepped out of his house and onto the front porch, he noticed some of his neighbors standing in the light from the streetlamps on the other side of the street. He made eye contact but looked away when they waved.
“Everything okay, Donovan?” Ray, one of the neighbors, asked as he shuffled from side to side, rising up on his tippy-toes as if to see if he could catch a glimpse of blood or gore, maybe even a body bag.
Raising his hand in a show of agreement, Donovan stepped off the front porch, walked past the uniformed cop standing on guard, and noticed Mike Klein under the maple tree they’d planted when they first moved here. Klein was a smoker, fifty years old, and in great shape. Still, he smoked, which turned his skin pale.
Turning his attention toward Donovan, Klein gave him an upward nod. He exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Glass.”
“Klein.”
They shook hands.
“Let me guess, you were in the neighborhood?” Donovan asked, the fake grin melting off his lips.
“Something like that.” He took a long suck of smoke from his cigarette before he held it in and gave an indicative glance toward the house. “Amelia, huh?”
Donovan started with a confirming smile but ended up erupting into tears. They poured out of his eyes, the pain pushing up his throat and escaping in a high-pitched choking sound. Klein exhaled, shook his head, and pulled Donovan into an embrace with his free arm.
“Shhh,” Klein said, his eyes twisting into a tortured frown. He patted Donovan’s back. “It’s all right.”
Catching his breath, Donovan stepped out of Klein’s hold. He wiped his face and shook his head. “This is what I came home to.”
Another indicative glance from Klein. “Those aren’t the kinds of things that should get you out of the house these days, Glass.”
Knowing where Klein was headed with the conversation, Donovan snapped his pointer finger out, aiming straight at the agent’s chest. “You gave us nothing, Klein. Almost a decade later, and you, Marshall, and Hawthorne gave us nothing.” He nearly spat the words as he rotated his accusatory finger toward the house. “That’s on you. Amelia’s on you, all of that nothing you offered us, and this is what happens.”
“What were you really doing in Detroit, Glass?” Klein asked, his voice stern.
Raising his eyebrows in a plea, Donovan stared straight into the federal agent’s soul. “You stripped away the last of our hope, Klein. Did you think this would end any other way?”
Agent Mike Klein flicked his half-smoked cigarette onto the grass and smothered it with the sole of his shoe. His jaw muscles flexed, and he brought his face closer. “I promised that I’d find your daughter, goddammit.”
Donovan’s eyes filled again. “And so did Jordan and Ted!” This time, when the tears dropped down his face, they did so with the same rumble of anger that had erupted with his words. “She’s been missing nine years, Klein. And now, she’s probably . . .” He couldn’t finish. Staring down at his feet, Donovan spun away from the agent and started back up toward the house.
Three days later, the upstairs bathroom sparkled. Removing the latex cleaning gloves from his swollen hands, Donovan stared at the tub from the doorway. That was where he’d found his wife, nearly twenty-four hours after she’d cut her wrists in a vile and horrific display of human rage and grief. She’d bled everywhere while he was out; one wrist, the one inside the tub, had discolored the water, while the other wrist dangled over the edge and bled out onto the cold tiles. His wife’s life had pooled onto the floor before crawling into the grooves and wandering through the pathways between those tiles. He’d had to use bleach to scrub the red tint out of the grout.
Although Donovan hadn’t heard the footsteps creeping up the stairs and into the hallway behind him, he recognized the gruff smoker’s voice.
“Walk me through the scene, Glass.” It was Klein.
“Just in the neighborhood again?” Donovan didn’t even bother to turn around. How he’d neglected to lock the front door, he didn’t know. He’d probably forgotten to lock it last night, leaving the house open to any stray or lost psychopath looking for the North Williamson apartments. But with nobody left in his life, what did it matter?
“Just me and you, pal. No locals to give me that look that asks me to go away.”
“No smoking in the house.” Klein reeked, a smell that contended with the sting of bleach.
“I quit.”
Donovan grunted, wiped a finger across his upper lip, and pointed at the tub. “Why do people slice themselves up in the tub, Klein?”
The FBI agent stepped past Donovan and stopped just inside the doorway. There was a baby-blue toilet on the wall to the right, next to a laminate vanity with a matching blue sink. The soaker tub would’ve been fashionable, except its blue veneer made it too old to be retro. Small space, but it had served the Glass family well. Even before Elizabeth had been abducted, the house worked well for a young family of three. The teenage years might’ve complicated things a little, would’ve forced a bathroom schedule upon the trio, but there was a stand-up shower in the basement and a two-piece on the main floor. It would have worked, and if it hadn’t, they would have moved someplace bigger.
“Donovan.” Klein was leaning toward Donovan’s nose. “I know it’s tough, but what else can you tell me? What time did you get home, anything else that stands out in here, that sort of thing.”
Donovan nodded, the questions too familiar from nearly a decade prior. “It was four thirty when I got home from Detroit. Where’s Jordan? He used to come around a lot.”
Klein swallowed and looked away, running a finger along the countertop. “Agent Hawthorne is no longer with the bureau, Donny. Now, let’s focus on the scene, okay? Tell me about the Detroit trip, before the Wayne County boys put your fun to an end.”
Swallowing the dryness in his throat, Donovan gave a nod. “Left at nine the day before, drove straight there.”
“With?”
“Myself. I was by myself. And there was no fun.” He shook his head, frowning and looking away. The agent placed a hand on his shoulder, but Donovan shrugged it away. He didn’t want Klein’s empathy; the whole thing with Detroit pissed him
off. Maybe that was what Klein wanted, so he nodded at the tub again. “Like I said, I got home at four thirty, and she was in here, already dead.” He explained how he’d found her, the bit about one arm in the tub, the other dangling over the edge, the blood on the floor. “And a few tea candles, all of them burned out by the time I got here.” He nodded at the vanity. “Pictures of Elizabeth, one of her tutus—I mean, one of her teddy bears.”
“The elephant?”
Another difficult swallow. Donovan nodded. “I can’t blame her, Klein.”
The agent reached inside his suit jacket and produced a pack of cigarettes.
“I thought you quit.” Donovan said before shaking his head at the realization that Klein was being facetious earlier. “No smoking in the house.”
Klein grinned as he pushed the cigarettes back into his inside pocket, and Donovan wanted to punch him in the face.
“Donny, what do you mean, you ‘can’t blame her’?”
“Not for killing herself—that was just another bad decision on her part. But for wanting her daughter with her when she died.” Donovan choked on the last word. There’d been so many times in the years since his daughter’s abduction when he and Amelia would reminisce about the nights she would squeeze into their bed and rub their backs or forearms, soothe them back to sleep before they could drag her back to her own bedroom just down the hall. “She wanted to feel those nights again,” Donovan said, except he hadn’t explained to Klein what “those nights” had meant to his dead wife.
Still, Klein nodded, turning his face away from Donovan as he surveyed the small bathroom. After a brief silence, Klein pointed to the tub and then to the vanity. When he turned his attention to Donovan, his chin looked heavy, numb.
“Suicides like these, the vic’s sending a message, Donny.” He gave a nod that said he was 100 percent certain about it, too. “You were out, chasing down a lead about Elizabeth that got you arrested, and your wife’s in here thinking she’s a lot closer to finding your daughter than you are.”
The Last Night (The Last Series Book 2) Page 30
